LEGACY OF ASHES: THE HISTORY OF THE
CIAby Tim Weiner,Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

NATIONAL BESTSELLERNational Book Award WinnerNational Book Critics Circle Award FinalistOne of the Best Books of the Year: Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Economist, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Salon

For the last sixty years, the CIA has managed to maintain
a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, burying its blunders
in top-secret archives. Its mission was to know the world. When it did
not succeed, it set out to change the world. Its failures have handed
us, in the words of President Eisenhower, “a legacy of ashes.”

Now Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tim Weiner offers
the first definitive history of the CIA—and everything is on the
record. LEGACY OF ASHES is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily
from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA
veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence. It takes the
CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold
war and the war on terror, to its near-collapse after 9/ll.

Tim Weiner’s past work on the CIA and American
intelligence was hailed as “impressively reported” and “immensely
entertaining” in The New York Times. The Wall Street
Journal called it “truly extraordinary . . . the best book
ever written on a case of espionage.” Here is the hidden history
of the CIA: why eleven presidents and three generations of CIA officers
have been unable to understand the world; why nearly every CIA director
has left the agency in worse shape than he found it; and how these failures
have profoundly jeopardized our national security.

"MUST READING for anyone interested in the CIA or American intelligence since World War II."
The Washington Post Read
the full review

"THE BEST BOOK I'VE READ YET ON THE CIA'S COVERT ACTIONS." Edward Jay Epstein, The Wall
Street Journal Read
the full review

"A TIMELY AND VITAL CONTRIBUTION...[THAT] GLITTERS WITH RELEVANCE." Los Angeles Times Read the full review